Tahini sauce

In Cyprus this sauce is known as tahinosalata. In the United States, initially tahini was generally limited to a various Middle Eastern and health food stores.

The word tahini first appeared in English toward the end of the nineteenth century, but the actual product did not become commonplace in America until the late 1960s, when Middle Eastern dishes began gaining popularity.

Tahini, also known as tahena, is a paste made from toasted sesame seeds, olive oil and lemon juice. It is often flavored with salt, pepper and cumin. Toasting sesame seeds yields a more oily mixture and adds a stronger flavor.

One of the common uses of tahini is in a raw sauce typically made with lemon juice, water, garlic, and sometimes chopped parsley.

Tahini serves as a key component of Middle Eastern cooking – it appears in hummus; eggplant dishes, such as baba ghanouj; and confections, notably halva.

It is also used as a dipping sauce for falapel. No falapel sandwich is complete without a generous helping of tahini smeared on pita bread. It has a nutty flavor that acts as a perfect vehicle for both sweet and savory applications.

Like sesame seed, tahini is a vegetarian source of iron. One tablespoon (15 g) provides 91 calories; protein, 2.7 g; carbohydrate, 2.7 g; fiber, 2.2 g; fat, 8.5 g; iron, 0.95 mg; thiamin, 0.24 mg; riboflavin, 0.02 mg; niacin, 0.85 mg.
Tahini sauce

English Cumberland sauce

Cumberland sauce is a piquant English sauce based on redcurrant jelly, with the addition of orange juice and peel, port and mustard.

This sauce in much in favor in England and many feel this is the best of all sauce for cold meat and poultry and hot ham and tongue.

Cumberland sauce seems to have arisen from a combination of two distinct sauces with games dishes in the eighteenth century one based on redcurrant jelly, the other on port or claret.

Cumberland sauce does not seem to have been conferred on it until the 1870s (the first record of it is in Short’s Dinner at Home (1878)).

It was name after Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, that brother of George IV’s who the last independent ruler of Hanover. The sauce itself being as obviously German in origin as was its supposed royal namesake of the House of Hanover.
English Cumberland sauce

Gravy sauce

Gravy can be defined as a sauce made from pan drippings, fat from the main ingredients, a thickener such as flour and, liquid, with the thickening the defining feature. When the gravy has the correct flavor, it can be thickened to a double-thick consistency with a roux or starch. A roux is produced from the meat fats and flour.

Gravy is first found, historically in medieval French cookbooks as gravé.  When meat was prepared on a spit over an open fore, a pan was placed under the roasting meat to collect the drippings. The fat was then skimmed off of these juices and this was served as a sauce with the meat.

By the eighteenth century the meaning of ‘gravy’ had expanded to reflect the increasing, and sometimes begrudged, influence of the French kitchen, which relied on stock for many dishes.

Gravies accompany big roasted things, such as an Easter leg of lamb Thanksgiving turkey.

The components are essentially the same whether roasting a chicken, turkey, pork loin, sirloin roast or leg of lamb.

In United States, according to the standard gravies must contain at least 25% meat stock or broth or 6% meat. Mono and diglycerides allowed in amount of 1% in gravies.
Gravy sauce

Worcestershire sauce

Worcestershire sauce takes its name from the English county - or shore of Worcestershire, the home of the condiment’s inventor Sir Marcus Sandys.

Created in the 19th century by the British during their rule of India, Worcestershire sauce became a commercial success when branded and marketed by Lea & Perrins in 1838.

The original recipe of Worcestershire sauce but basically consist of anchovies layered in brine, tamarinds, in molasses, garlic in vinegar, chilies, cloves, shallots and sugar.

After sitting for two years with periodic stirrings, the mixture is sifted of the solids and bottled.

Worcestershire sauce is used to flavor in almost any dish: soups, fish, shellfish, meat and poultry, eggs, cheese, salad dressing and sauces. It is an ingredient in the dressing for Caesar salad and in the Bloody Mary cocktail, as well as many Middle Eastern dishes.
Worcestershire sauce

What is ketchup?

The late Tom Stobart, in his The Cook’s Encyclopedia, says that the word came into English ‘from the Orient, perhaps from the Malay or Chinese.’

The word ‘ketchup’ conjures up an image of the thick, sweet, tomato-based condiment that American teenagers deploy indiscriminately on most of their foods.

Tomato ketchup is similar to tomato sauce except that it is thick in consistency. The amount of spices added in tomato ketchup is considerably higher than in tomato sauce.

Tomato ketchup may have originated in America. It was widely used throughout the United States in the early nineteenth century and small quantities of it were first bottled in the 1850s.

Tomato ketchup was more versatile and performed a variety of culinary functions. It was used for coloring, and flavoring in many prepared dishes; it was employed in soups, gravies, sauce and salad dressing and as condiment on steak, chop, roasts, cutlets, fish, oysters, eggs and many other foods.

The consumption of ketchup has expanded along with proliferation of fast food restaurant, where it is dispensed in single serving pouches or in large plastic reservoirs with push pumps.
What is ketchup?